Empyrean
by Di Ambrogio
Summary: Ed gave everything up, threw out everything he had ever been just for another chance. The ending will be happy, this time. It just has to be.


_White is this world, void of life. The only thing that is nestled within the immaculate place is the gate. That's all there is, the white white world and the dark dark gate. They exist in juxapose, almost as yin and yang._

 _White for bones, for sterility, for nothingness. If It was a human, it would have been assuredly driven insane by this point. The whiteness is too bright. There is nothing concrete, this world is simply one of empty possibilities._

 _White never changing, this is It's world; not a single variation in tone, infinite emptiness._

 _The Gate, the dark gate with its marbled statues ever reaching. How black, how deadly. Leave it be, mankind. It, that thing's most sincere wish is for world to forget their pursue._

 _Infinite is the world in which nothing is born. Black is the gate, for death and loss, and for everything it causes._

 _Stop humanity, stop craving, stop overreaching._

 _For this selfishness shall break the world._

* * *

 _There is no memory to its coming to be, which It supposes is natural. There is only the recollection of becoming aware, of thinking. Thought had been a sudden thing, like a star being born in an instant. A name had never even come to mind, it simply went with whatever humans called it at the time._

 _Sometimes, It wonders if it should look like something. Its body is nothing but an outline and somehow that feels wrong. Is it an animal or a human? A gender would be nice. Being female or male would matter not, but with that It could at least identify._

 _Wailing splits the white void it inhabits, "Dannttttttte!" It looks to the source, idly wondering what made it see when it doesn't have any eyes._

" _Dannnteeeeeeeeee!" A red thing slams against the gate. The creature is a blob with no features with the exception of' a small mouth that it uses to release its death rattle._

 _Transfixed, It stares at the spirit for awhile. There were more and more of the things coming through lately, most usually en mass. They were corrupt, so it was obvious that the gate could not accept them. Such a thing was akin to attempting to put a square block into a circular hole._

 _It attempts words to the other. "You cannot get through." The spirit was not listening, so the blank being repeated the phrase a few times to no avail._

" _Dandandandan-" What a shame, the the thing was broken. They almost always were._

 _So, It smiles. This is the function it was born to do, devouring those who could not pass. The teeth of the genderless being are its only discernible features and It takes a sense of pride in them. White and pearly, they shine like broken moonlight._

 _Devour the world, Fenrir. Swallow your tail, Ouroboros. Take the damned and never let go, Lucifer. There are many names for this act._

 _Souls make nary a sound as they are ripped._

* * *

 **October 3, 1899**

Blood does not lie. When a person is injured, their rich ichor flows and tells of the wound. If the crimson is tested, it can tell everything there is to know about a person. The simple mix conveys its contents with ease.

His side is so red. It's not a sunset red, rather it is like that of the roses in the back garden. Perhaps he's pricked himself on a thorn, is that why the air smells of iron? Elle would scold him if he stained the carpet.

His body is just so tired. There's nothing to it, as if everything's dripping away ever so slowly. His eyes are too clouded to see far and when he attempts movement the sting in his side makes him think to do otherwise. It's simply too hard to try.

Not realizing that it is his life staining the floor, the blond contemplates the growing red puddle. Its color brings up a sense of deja vu that creeps up ever so slowly. A stone that wasn't a simple stone, but a thing of sacrificed life. Its shade was even deeper than the red he's seeing. But, as his lazy mind reaches for the train of thought it simply drifts away.

Oh well, it couldn't have been important if he's forgetting-right?

Noises register in his hearing. His senses are blooming ever so slowly.

"We're dying." Her voice is a soft tiny thing. It's the tone that gets him before the words. Elesion's words are never like that, she's all noise and trumpets. That's what she's _supposed_ to speak like.

"Oh?" he slowly pulls his arm over his face. At this point Ed can't even tell if he spoke aloud or thought the words. It wouldn't matter either way, his female friend was his own private hallucination. She'd be able to tell.

"We are dying." She repeats the words with a little more force. "Your liver's been punctured."

"Ohhhhhh. That's bad, isn't it?" He can practically hear her sigh as the reality of the situation just starts to get to him. He hadn't pricked himself after all, he was bleeding out from a wound. If he was bleeding from his _liver_ then that puddle-

"Is you." This elicits a groan from the man. Today was just a shitty day, it seemed. The doctor in him figures that adrenaline must have been the thing that was killing the pain. If not that, then the exsanguination was so severe that he didn't have the capacity to feel.

Joy.

Ed is grasping at his senses, but they're unreliable. His ears are ringing, his eyes are a burning haze, and everything else is clocked out. It feels like he's on the verge of a long awaited sleep.

For some reason that is not scary. The prospect of death doesn't faze him. It's not normal, the blond knows, but who does he have? Oh, he's had lovers and the like- but they never stay. This world isn't even _his,_ there's no family here.

The younger him would have told him to suck it up and barrel forward. Elesion would beat him half to death if he even mentioned giving up.

"I'm tired." A good man would be asking if there were others who were injured, not bemoan himself. The ideal _regular_ Edam Electus (why did she even come up with that name in the first place) would have stood up and saved as many as he could even as he bled to death.

But he's not a good man, he's just a good actor.

She's reaching, he can tell. Elesion is trying to touch and reassure and all of the things she thinks he needs. The fingers that work their way through his knotted hair are like mist, weighted but invisible. She's despairing yet again over the fact of not being able to touch.

"That's fine." His head tilts back as she comes to a knot and puts her nervousness into working it out. "You can't sleep here, however. You promised that you would stop sleeping in such weird places and I will hold you to it."

The response, though groggy, is automatic by now, "Go to hell."

It was not that he did it on purpose. He just had the habit of working too hard and then falling asleep in strange places. That wasn't his fault in the _least_. It had just happened that one time he passed out in the lab there had been a carbon monoxide leak. Elesion had to shriek to high heaven to get him up to avoid the deadly substance.

Needless to say the woman gave him hell for it. When he refused to change the behavior, she vented her rage at him for not having a single self-preserving wish in what she termed 'poltergeist-ing' (there is an -ing it really is best not to argue otherwise) until he agreed.

Really, she was so silly.

Eyesight, the tricky thing that it was, returned at some point during his reverie. It is not perfect, the world presented before him is painted in the dim colors of twilight. Colors are muted and hold no depth.

They stay like that for what feels like an eternity with Elesion attempting to detangle the rats nest of his hair and him blinking up at the ceiling. There are no words or sounds in the blurry world. Ed floats again, wondering just when he is going to bleed out. The injuries have taken away any sense of time.

"Just for a moment." The words that shatter the stillness make the hand in his hair halt. "Let me rest for a little bit so I can gather my strength. I _am_ injured after all, would you really deny me that?" The doctor punctuates his proposal with an attempt at a smile.

It seems like an eternity until she answers, the words slow, "Just for a few minutes?"

"Would I lie to you?" Eds reply is genuine. He just needs a moment to rest and gather himself. Yes, after that he would make the decision of what to do.

The silver haired woman gives in with a sigh, "Alright." Though still fearful, she trusts him. Elle, with her heart on her sleeve, simply resumes her ministrations. It's all she can do.

His eyelids close and the man caught in between the beginning and end of his last breath is taken by Hypnos.

* * *

 _Aren't dreams wondrous?_

Time, he knows, is a human construct made to help understand the world. The passing of seasons, of how many minutes in an hour, and how old a person could be- they were human things. Animals hold no care for time or date, they simply move with the world. When it was winter they slept and when it was spring they mated. Such a thing was so simple.

That Thing had explained it to him, long ago. They have had too many encounters for him to remember the specific one, but that debate was seated in between the time of them learning to communicate and trying not to kill each other. Which, thinking back, was still incredibly vague. He and the genderless being had been like oil and water for the longest time.

'Humans', It had described, needed time because they were aware of how little of it they had. Their lives were short, so they had silly internal desire to count every minute to ensure none was lost. Ed had retorted that they weren't eternal beings, humanity needed the constructs to function.

It had shrugged in its own 'well-no-compromising-from-me' way and that had been that. Now, however, he understood somewhat. In the void there was nothing to pass the time, with the exception of watching It chomp down on wandering souls ever so carnivorously. There was no reason for keeping a clock in this white world

At first Edward had tried forcing It to open the portal. He had charged at the thing like a bull but it was to no avail. Bargaining mixed with threats were just as useless. Blank as ever, It had simply tutted at him.

Language between it and him is complex. One thing could mean a hundred other things depending how the verb was said. The blond was still trying to converse. _"Boy who is armor that looks like me. Blond hair, young, inexperienced, child. He is like me. Where? "_

It answers him in lyrical tones, like an indescribable siren's song. The language here is something of god and alchemy, something he is slowly coming to comprehend.

" _Child who is metal? Small thing?"_ Tears had dried out long ago, such actions threw It into a literal orchestra of frenzy. Was he dying? Did he get wounded? The best way to get a straight answer was to give a straight question.

"Alphonse." His brother's name has been repeated hundreds of times. The only thing the creature could accurately relate to was alchemy. While It had the memories of those it had eaten, one of Edward's first realizations was that his 'friend' lacked the ability to recognize anything that was not alchemical in nature. It was the reason why he had never spoken about his sibling before.

" _Alphonse is this blond who is metal and is with you?"_ He runs his flesh hand through his hair and laughs. That is at least some progress.

" _Where? Where is he? Did it work?_ " Words are hurried and he knows that the end was an F note when it was supposed to be a G, but that doesn't matter.

It replies in the first Amestrain he can recall it speaking, "Shamballa."

Alphonse is in Shamballa?

Alphonse.

Al.

* * *

Elle.

Sounds of distress tug him back into consciousness. They make his ears ring in their explosiveness. When he opens his eyelids it's as if the sun is shining straight into his crimson orbs. Everything is so bright and sharp! Did the world run out of mercy, yet again?

The heartbeat in his chest is exploding like fireworks. Edam hadn't felt this wretched in years. Before, he was numb to the world and its parts. Blood, he presumes, is the poisonous scent shoving him into languor. A pool of just his own would never smell this bad.

Edam makes an untoward sound as he shakes his head in an attempt to locate what roused him. Al- no Elle- was supposed to wake him. Who was Al?

A scream drives him to gather what vestigial amounts of strength he has left and attempt to move. Alas, it was not to be. Where there had been numbness now sat fire. Edam thinks that dying in such a state, like some put down canine, is not allowed. An end such as that would be a fucking disgrace.

Cursing is the only way he can assuage his mind, so he does. The man braces himself with his hands and shoves upward while screeching like some half mad sailor. "Know what? Why don't I put a bullet in you and see how much you like it, asshole." He doesn't even know if it was a bullet or not, but the details could jump off a cliff for all he cared.

"Just move, that's all you have to do. Lift the body you belong to so it can survive-" It's his right arm that's the issue. That limb and his left leg are covered in a myriad of alchemic designs to keep them stable. The nerves just weren't right and the blood loss just made it all worse.

Edam does it, he successfully lifts himself up to a kneeling position and basks in it. The glory only lasts a second before nausea forces him down again.

Life could just blow him.

Edam is undaunted, there has to be a way to get through this. He's got to survive. For now, there was no specific reason, the rage at his own uselessness is enough.


End file.
